The Fall of the 420 Hotel

In the final hours of Occupy Portland, there was mud, a riot squad and a speckled rooster.

It was just after 10 am Nov. 10 when Mayor Sam Adams
announced he wanted Lownsdale and Chapman squares cleared and would
close them to the public by midnight two days later. Inside the camp,
Occupiers moved from rage to euphoria to despair.

After
the news, more than 100 people descended on City Hall, which went into
lockdown. Some Occupiers wheeled their valuables—generators, coolers, a
massage chair—out of the parks, while others concocted plans for a
potluck and dance party timed to the midnight deadline Nov. 12. Others
went shopping for office space they could rent to help keep the movement
alive.

The one thing they agreed on: They would not leave their parks willingly.

It was clear that
police were concerned about a confrontation. They were told by some
Occupiers that people in the camps had dug trenches and built an arsenal
of rocks, boards with nails and shields made of wooden pallets.

Other Occupiers put
the word out for people to come downtown and help defend their camp.
They used their website and Twitter, and even printed fliers that they
pasted on MAX trains.

On
Saturday night, Nov. 12, the parks and surrounding streets filled with
people, most of whom had never been to the Occupy Portland camp before.
Many poured out of bars to watch what might happen. Bicyclists calling
themselves “The Swarm” pedaled around the parks. A drum circle made up
of people beating on white plastic buckets formed in the middle of
Southwest 3rd Avenue. Protesters climbed the iconic Main Street elk
statue to pose for pictures and kiss. One man atop the elk played a
French horn.

IMAGE: Steel Brooks

At midnight, the
crowd counted down the seconds from 10, as if it were New Year’s Eve. At
the mayor’s deadline, there were more people in the parks than ever
before. It was a party.

The police didn’t
show up in riot gear until around 1:30 am, when they formed a line along
Main Street across 3rd Avenue from the parks. Five officers rode in on
horses. Someone tossed a burning object and spooked a couple of the
horses. Someone else threw an open pocket knife and hit a cop in the
helmet. One protester was pepper sprayed; another was arrested.

Eventually, police
moved down 3rd Avenue and took up position at the intersection with
Madison Street. Some protesters shouted in the officers’ faces. But
others were too jovial to remain confrontational for long. One man
shouted, “We love you!” Then he yelled, “We love you especially!” to a
blond female officer. She smirked.

The air smelled of
the apple-cider vinegar protesters had used to soak their bandanas to
combat a potential tear-gas assault from the police.

The standoffs in the
streets lasted for more than four hours. Occupiers served coffee in the
middle of 3rd Avenue, pouring from vacuum pots at the feet of riot
police. The crowd chanted, “This is what democracy looks like!” and
“You’re sexy, you’re cute, take off your riot suit!” to the endless beat
of white plastic bucket drums.

IMAGE: vivianjohnson.com

At 6 am, a voice from the loudspeaker on top of a police van broke into the noise:

“Good morning. Please
move back into Chapman Square.” The announcer told everyone the police
wanted to clear the street for traffic.

The
crowd complied, the cops soon turned and left, and it seemed like
victory. People hugged and filed back into Chapman Square through a
human canopy of linked hands. Buckets of Voodoo doughnuts arrived, a
bicycle boombox played Michael Jackson and the Black Eyed Peas, and
people danced.